Lit Third Essential Guide to Characters (formerly "Who would you want to see . . . ?")

Kind of a random thing, but I just happily realized that this guide (release date: Summer 2012) will be out after the Darth Plagueis novel (release date: February 28, 2012). I think we've found another essential character.

 

Flipping through the old EGTC, I've realized one thing I really, really, really, really want: dates of birth. For all the stats, I can't believe date of birth isn't given. It can just be a year, but having an age for the character is a billion times more useful than knowing his or her eye color. There are all kinds of people who are EU mainstays -- Thrawn, Hobbie, Janson, Karrde, Bel Iblis, Bail Organa, possibly Tarkin (I'm still canvassing the sources on that one) -- and we don't even know something as basic as how old they are.

 

Don't see it happening. Too unnecessarily definitive.

 

First of all, I'd like to wish you a lot of courage while writing this book Or even more important, choosing the characters in the book, which will be one difficult job.

As always I'd like the book to be 80% about the movies and tv spin-offs and 20% about EU. There are plenty enough interesting characters in the movies and spin-offs. I really don't want to see 'The Essential Guide to EU Characters'. And please don't add any creatures because they're added to every book except 'The Essential Guide to Creatures'.

I'd like the book to contain brand new information. Not everything is known about every character. There are still characters that belong to a unnamed species and years of birth would be a great choice or perhaps even the names of their parents, children and siblings.

To add more less important characters, it would be wonderful if it was possible to use rosters. Then you can add all characters from the Cantina, Astromech Droids, Clone Commanders, the Senate, Jabba's Palace and the Outlander on - let's say - two pages each. These pages will be much more interesting than reading about some dude in a NJO novel who says 5 words and then gets killed by a cloned bee. Besides ... you could finally give names to unnamed residents in the Cantina and Jabba's Palace. Now, that would be something!

 

Oh, also Karnak Tetsu.

He seems to have a very big role in events following the Great Sith War but we are told nothing other than he had a reign of terror as leader of the Pure-blooded Sith Sorcerers of Tund.

EDIT: I'd also like to know more about Valik Kodank too.

 

I approve of this notion.

 

There's still some without names? I though WEG and Decipher took care of all of that.

 

The more I think about it, I think that a group shot of New Republic/Galactic Alliance senators with short bios would be awesome. Granted, I know this is a longshot, but there are SO MANY interesting senators that we have from the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, the NJO series, and even the Legacy-era (comics and books).

While that are literally dozens of cool senators, I would probably choose the following eight:

Behn-kihl-nahm
Tolik Yar
Porolo Miatamia
Fyor Rodan
Gron Marrab
Triebakk
Bail Antilles
Gial Gahan

An awesome dream team of senators, with six of them requiring pictures.

--Adm. Nick

 

I've always pictured Fyor Rodan as Sio Bibble...I don't know exactly why.

 

Why not go all out and make some new ones? Even just lists of names would be nice for various eras of Imperial Advisors, Jedi Council members, Provisional Council, Inner Council, GFFA Cabinet, ect. 2-3 pages, a few pictures and pop-outs of notable members who are not already covered, ect. Maybe more in-universe stuff like the signing of the Declaration of Rebellion, with a copy of it and a picture of the signing ceremony, like the signing of the Dec of Independnece. Stuff like that.

 

I would love to see him in there, but you've got to admit he's not much of a candidate for "essential."

 

We could maybe do that. Lucasfilm would have to agree, and we'd have to get over the hurdle of possible future contradictions. The old Guide to the Star Wars Universe had birth dates for Obi-Wan, Anakin, Luke, and Leia that were all later contradicted by the prequels.

Dan

 

Yes, this has been one of the most helpful suggestions to come out of this thread discussion, and I'm definitely planning to structure the outline in this way. There would still be an A-Z list of characters in the beginning or end so you'd be able to find the specific people covered under each roster grouping.

Dan

 

Hey Dan, what are your thoughts on a new updated Essential Guide to Droids?

 

This, however, wouldn't be a brand new addition: the NEGTC had "Jedi Council Members" and "Jedi from the Geonosis battle arena" entries among others. Since then of course all those Jedi received major roles in Episode III, TCW and the EU and acquired a substantial fanbase each. Thus, while Plo Koon and Aayla Secura would require individual entries, the rosters could still do marvelous stuff in describing Exile's companions or Skirata's clan, who mostly do similar stuff anyway.

 

Some might consider me petty for this, but I'd respectfully ask the authors that they avoid the major mistake that the Complete Encyclopedia staff made: copying entire sections from the Star Wars official site database. I realize that much of the information on established characters will be simply regurgitated, but there is absolutely no need for such lazy copy-and-paste routines

 

The Essential Guides are a completely different animal than the Encyclopedia - more chronicle than database. The only guides that have used pre-existing text, as far as I know, are the second editions - and only then when there's nothing new to add.

 

I suppose I don't really see all that big of a difference. I personally believe that no source (be it in encyclopedia or essential guide) should reguritate the same information verbatim.

 

Agreed - the CSWE also did direct copy-and-paste from the original. (and in some cases, it's intriuging to see what wasn't)

 

Some CSWE entries were copied almost word for word from the CUSWE, and IIRC, this resulted in some things that were previously fanon becoming canonical.

 

Well, we're used enough to getting stuff overwritten that I'd sooner have some dates put down that people will probably follow, while running the risk of having them contradicted, than never get anything established at all. With the prequels out, probably the only thing that would majorly get in the way would be Zahn playing with his characters, something that could maybe be avoided if he were asked for his input during the process.

 

The CSWE was a HUGE project that simply couldn't be completed without drawing on those sources. There's a reason the writing staff expanded from two to five people, and they were ALL swamped by it as the project neared deadline.

 

You know what would also be good? A review of heights. Some of the metric conversion done in the past is just ridiculous. Example: Mon Mothma is clearly a tall woman. Her actress is 5'8". ROTJ shows her to be about the same height as Madine, who's listed as 1.7 m, which is about 5'7", and probably accurate. Yet Mothma, a tall woman, has been listed forever as 1.5 m. Or a ridiculously short 4'11". That's just not accurate to any visual source, or to reality. Some official heights are an inch or two off from the actors, and that's fine, but it might be worth making sure there aren't other cases where characters are listed at significantly different heights than their visual appearances or actors support.